[Brenda Collins Dillon]

I borrowed this from a list I am on. I thought it was interesting.

Sinking Springs Cemetery and the area in and around Abingdon, VA was once Indian trails. The Cherokee nation was to the south and the Shawnee made their home to the North. Much of their travel was done by water. Holston River provided a pathway through this country. This was also their hunting ground and the forest trails they traveled. Neither tribe ever made their homes here. According to local legend, the Great Spirit forbade them to come to this lush area because the living would be too easy and the inhabitants would become corrupt.

Around 1750, Daniel Boone and a fellow hunter, Nathaniel Gist, were traveling through the area. They stopped to camp and spend the night where the town of Abingdon now sits. During the night, wolves attacked their dogs. Boone gave Abingdon its first name – Wolf Hills. The wolves lived in caves under where the town is today. The entrance to the caverns is located where The Cave House, a gift and antique shop, is presently located.

In 1774 a large fort was built. It was soon enlarged to hold up 600 men women and children during the fierce Indian raids. The town’s second name was Black’s Fort, named after the man who built the fort – Joseph Black.

Washington County was established in 1776, the first region in the world named after the great General George Washington. The town of Abingdon was incorporated in 1778, again in honor of the Washington family. It was named for Martha Washington’s English home, Abingdon Parrish.

Sinking Springs Cemetery began on the exact day the nation was born. The first man was buried in the cemetery on July 4, 1776.

What is now Martha Washington Inn was a private mansion built by Francis Preston in 1830. It was used as a women’s college for awhile but during the War Between the States it was converted into a hospital for Confederate soldiers. Local history says that many who died there were brought to Sinking Springs for burial.

Also, during the war, a train transporting Confederate troops wrecked near Abingdon and the victims (or victim) were brought to the same cemetery. There are differing opinions about the number of casualties. Earlier stories said a mass grave was used to bury several unidentified Confederate soldiers. In later years, it is believed that there was only one casualty. At one time there were wooden crosses in the cemetery marking individual graves.

We do know that the section of the cemetery know as Confederate Square is the burial place of those unidentified soldiers who died in Washington County during the Civil War.

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